The campaign’s main objective was to intercept a better preserved, “tidier” column of stratigraphy. The aim was an attempt to understand whether, as well as the two deposits interpreted as cargo remains (late Republican the upper one – TSS 4/SR 4, late archaic the lower – TSS 3/SR 3) that had smashed against the rocks, there were other wrecks that could be linked to the other groups of materials that do not seem to relate simply to unloading activities in the port. Therefore, a sector in correspondence with the canyon cutting the seabed in the bay was investigated. Here, continuing from and adjacent to the trench dug in 1978 where a concentration of intact or complete amphorae was uncovered, the sediments seemed to be thicker.

The deposit resulting from the disturbed upper cargo (US 1 and the underlying 10-SAS I, 11-SAS II, 13, 15 – SAS III) appeared in all three of this season’s trenches (but to a greater extent in III) below the surface layer constituted by rock slippage. It was made up of allocthonous small rounded pebbles, identified as ballast, and by a substantial concentration of materials, probably in situ, smashed under the rocky collapse but partially reconstructable: amphora fragments (mainly produced in the Salento), coarse pottery (table and cooking wares) and various fine wares: Megarian bowls, some complete, lagynoi, black gloss cups, fragments of sovradipinta pottery, thin walled ware, Eastern sigillata and colour-coated ware, as well as lamps, glass etc.

A timber element found in the central area of SAS III at a depth of about 5 m, appeared particularly interesting. It had a mortise and tenon joint, and seemed, although heavily deteriorated, to be a piece of the boat’s longitudinal structures, perhaps a part of the keel or the bow or stern, which adds to those already recovered in the same area between 1972 and 1983.

However, no evidence of other deposits clearly identifiable as cargo remains was found. The only exception was a small nucleus of late-antique finds (LR 2 amphora and African cooking ware), found in SAS II, in the interface between US 1 and the surface layer, which can be linked to the coeval materials recovered between 1972 and 1983. This evidence may represent the remains of a deposit that has largely disappeared (another cargo?), datable to the 5th-6th century, that overlay the much earlier US 1.

Lastly, at the base of US 11 – SAS II, at 5.10 m below sea level, a concentration of lithic industry was identified. Datable to the Neolithic period (5th millennium B.C.), together with other elements it may indicate the remains of a work area, now submerged by material washed down from a higher level, or more probably due to a rise in the sea level that submerged the paleo-shoreline in the Neolithic and Eneolithic periods. Moreover, this evidence is a reflection of that found on other important sites on the coast of the Salento during research undertaken with the aim of reconstructing the ancient coastal landscape.